Nov. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



409 



unwilling to part with tlieir old deeds, and yet 

 may be ready to communicate their contents, it 

 would be desirable that such persons should be 

 induced to transmit copies, or abstracts of such 

 deeds to such a depository as I have suggested. 

 I am aware that considerable difficulties stand in 

 the way of this suggestion. There are unfor- 

 tunately very few, even among the lawyers, who 

 can read the oldest deeds ; and the copying and 

 abstracting of deeds takes more time and labour 

 than persons are generally willing to devote to 

 such an object. Still some there ar6 who may 

 adopt this suggestion, and every thing done in 

 furtherance of it would be something gained. 

 Attorneys might make themselves particularly 

 useful in this respect, as they have access to so 

 many deeds. As that access, however, is obtained 

 by means of professional confidence, they could not 

 reveal the contents of the deeds without the con- 

 sent of their clients; which, however, would pro- 

 bably be granted in any case where the attorney 

 assured his client that no prejudice could arise 

 from the disclosure ; and that assurance might 

 most securely be given where the deeds were very 

 ancient, and these are the deeds Avhich are gene- 

 rally most interesting to the antiquary. 



I have myself, from time to time, copied a part 

 of the most ancient deeds that I possess into a 

 book, each word being written without contraction, 

 and a description of the seals being added wher- 

 ever practicable. This I have done with the in- 

 tention of hereafter presenting the book, and 

 possibly the deeds themselves, to some place where 

 any one may inspect them ; and I hope that others 

 may adopt a similar course. 



I have seen the article in Vol. xii., p. 212., as to 

 the application of photography in copying old 

 deeds, and quite agree in the expediency of so ap- 

 plying it. In two respects, however, it seems likely 

 to fall short of copies made by competent persons. 

 The photographic copy must contain all the con- 

 tractions, abbreviations, and old letters of the ori- 

 ginal and, therefore, will only be legible by those 

 who could read the original; and there will, T fear, 

 be many cases in which the original will be too 

 much faded to be successfully taken by the photo- 

 graph. Still whatever the photograph does take 

 must be a correct copy as far as it goes ; and this 

 is very important, especially with respect to names, 

 which are often very difficult to decipher. In the 

 absence of the original deed, a photographic copy 

 and a written copy, so placed that the one may be 

 readily compared with the other, as, for instance, 

 one on one page and the other on the opposite 

 page, would seem the best expedient to adopt. 



I trust the subject of this Note is sufficiently 

 interesting to form an apology for its length. 



C. S. Greaves. 



No. 317.] 



A POSSIBLE TEST OF AUTHORSHIP. 



(Vol. xii., pp. ] 81. 269, 309. 332.) 

 The result of the labours of A. F. B. and his 

 friends is very interesting, although the former 

 does not seem to be perfectly satisfied. For this 

 reason I will suggest a new method, which will 

 give results by no means to be despised ; that is, 

 to ascertain the kind of letter most in request by 

 different authors. That the minds of authors 

 have a preference, is known for certain, although 

 they themselves may not be aware of the fact. 



From a long connection with printers and 

 printing, I have become aware of these things, 

 although I have never " made a note " of the par- 

 ticular works in which they occur. All readei's of 

 the common school-books which profess to teach 

 composition, must have seen the caution to young 

 writers given in the anecdote of the author whose 

 work was stopped by the pi'Inters, in consequence 

 of his being too fond of the capital letter J. This 

 is an extreme case, but there arc many analogous. 

 For instance, in newspapers the " leaders " par- 

 take of the nature of " book composition ; " the 

 " debates " take a delight in the letter h, partly 

 occasioned by " hear, hear," but not altogether ; 

 while the " paragraphs " have a predilection for 

 the letter t. Now the latter being written by 

 inferior writers — i. e. penny-a-liners — partake 

 of the character of loose writing, which abounds in 

 the crossed letter. I remember the case of a 

 novel which delighted so in the iv, that the com- 

 positors complained loudly of their type-cases 

 becoming " barges," that is, overflowing with 

 every other letter : and this was not a Welsh tale, 

 as one might suppose. There was another which 

 gloried in y and g, from the author having a pre- 

 dilection for active participles and adverbs. 



In a great measure to overcome these obstacles 

 to composition, the printer keeps what he calls a 

 " fount-case," in which are deposited those extra 

 letters which some authors love. 



Of course every one of your readers is aware 

 that the letter e occurs mahy more times in a sen- 

 tence than any other ; but as few are acquainted 

 with the proportion in which each letter is cast to a 

 " fount " of type, I will append it. Letter e 1200, 

 t 900, a 850, n, o, s, i 800, h 640, r 620, d 440, 

 I 400, u 340, c, m 300, /250, lo, y 200, g, p 170, 

 ft 160, V 120, k 80, q 50, ,;, x 40, z 20. Beside 

 these we have, of combined letters, fi 50, ^40, 

 fl 20, ffi 15, ffl 10, cB 10, OR 6, which of course 

 should be divided in the enumeration for the test 

 of authorship. 



The above list only refers to the small letters, 

 leaving out of consideration points, capitals, small 

 capitals, figures, italic, spaces, accents, and every 

 other " sort." I may, however, remark that the 

 proportion of capitals and small capitals differs 

 from the small letters. For instance, more of I 



